


All These Things

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Post-Credits Scene, Feelings, Fix-It, Fluff, Kinda?, M/M, Post-Endgame, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, winteriron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 01:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18063794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Tony needs to buy flowers for a special someone for a special reason for a special thing.The Winteriron Flower Shop AU that just HAPPENED okay.But also someone very special deserves a nice thing and I hope this qualifies.And I'm posting it today because it's March 10th and it's Bucky Barnes' Birthday.





	All These Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AntiSocialite (themodette)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themodette/gifts).



> Ro has done her magic and beta'd the thing and thank you thank you thank you!!!
> 
> For AntiSocialite, who is... I don't really have good words to describe how strong and amazing I think you are. And how many warm and soft things I think you deserve.
> 
> \---  
> \---  
> \---

Tony Stark walked into a florist shop.

 

It was, maybe, somewhere, the start of either a very short and very crude joke or a very long and very elaborate one. Either way, it probably wasn’t at all funny.

 

Either way, Tony walked into a florist shop.

 

As a man who spent most of his life in a climate controlled environment - an environment controlled by either himself or by JARVIS or by FRIDAY - Tony couldn’t help but feel vaguely assaulted by the heat and scent of the place as he stepped inside.

 

It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, except for the fact that it was out of his control. Not really. But it was… different.

 

Rows of color, riots of size and shape and barely-controlled chaos that seemed to sprout wildly in all directions, made the store sightlines absolutely  _ awful _ . 

 

He knew there was some kind of order to it all - if he took the time to actually look closely, he could parse it out - but the way his spine itched inside his skin, and the way his face  _ felt _ the warmth and the smell of the place... He didn’t even know what the smell was, except that it wasn’t hydraulic oil or any of the dozens of synthetic compounds his hands usually ended up stained with on a daily basis.

 

Tony wondered if this is how people felt about his lab.

 

Well, fuck people. It was  _ his _ lab.

 

He forced himself to take in a deep breath.

 

Really, the smell wasn’t bad - it wasn’t even overpowering. It was just  _ different _ . Organic and uncontrolled. Wild.

 

“Mornin’. Anything I can help you with?”

 

Tony turned at the sound of the drawl, so very Brooklyn that he could practically  _ taste _ shitty, hoppy beer and feel the tickle of an elaborate mustache on his cheek.

 

But the man who stood before Tony was no transplant hipster - or, at least, not the sort that populated Tony’s imagination. 

 

Taller than Tony by a few inches, broad-shouldered, broad-chested, narrow-waisted and thick-thighed, the man sported mismatched arms folded over his chest, stubble that looked about three days away from qualifying as a beard, and long, dark hair loose around his shoulders. 

 

And a face that made Tony think of the phrase ‘matinee idol’, because the man had an honest to fuck cleft chin, had a dimple in his left cheek that his lopsided smirk highlighted, and the clean lines of his face - the impossibly straight cut of his jaw and cheekbones and his pale, blue eyes - surely they all belonged on the silver screen, because no one this beautiful could be  _ real _ .

 

“Flowers,” Tony said, when he realized he had been staring for far, far too long.

 

The man’s smirk grew.

 

“Think you’re in the right place, then,” he replied. “You run here, or what?”

 

Tony frowned in confusion. Did he-

 

But then he remembered what he was wearing. And what he had been doing.

 

“I didn’t run  _ here _ ,” he growled. “I was  _ running, _ and this was on my way.”

 

“Uh huh,” the man nodded agreeably, but his eyes were full of amusement.

 

Tony narrowed his eyes at him.

 

“Isn’t the customer supposed to always be right?”

 

“Supposed to be, sure,” the man acknowledged. “So, Mr. Omniscient, omnipotent customer, what can I get you?”

 

Tony huffed in annoyance, but the question brought him back to just why he was here in the first place.

 

He looked around at the maze of flowers again, fully expecting to be attacked at any second.

 

“I need flowers.”

 

“You mentioned. Well, you said ‘flowers’ before. So, up to a verb and a subject - at this rate, we’ll be up to a complex sentence with independent clauses in, oh, half an hour, or so?”

 

“Does this brand of customer service win over all your clients?”

 

“Nah, just the special ones,” the man winked at him.

 

_ Special _ . Right.

 

Tony didn’t entirely know how to feel about that.

 

“Who are the flowers for? You? Need something to brighten up your boardroom?”

 

“I haven’t set foot in a boardroom in six years. I’m not about to break that streak just to try my hand at decorating.”

 

The man nodded, but didn’t say anything else, clearly waiting for Tony to elaborate.

 

Tony sighed.

 

“They aren’t for me - it’s... for someone else.”

 

“Someone  _ special _ ?” the man taunted.

 

Tony lifted one eyebrow.

 

“Yes,” Tony decided on blunt force honesty. “Someone very special.”

 

The words had the man’s smirk slipping, had him rocking back on his heels and restlessly shifting his arms.

 

The left was a StarkTech prosthetic, one of the Mark VIIs. It was years out of date at this point - just last month, the BioMed division had rolled out the Mark XLII.

 

“Any occasion?” the man finally stirred himself to ask, visibly making an effort to get over Tony’s admission.

 

Tony rolled his shoulders in a careless shrug, more at ease now. He looked at the flower nearest him - an appalling bright thing with a huge round head and curls of golden petals. Sunflower, he thought absently, and couldn’t help but look closer.

 

He loved sunflower seeds, one of his favorite lab snacks when he craved something salty, but he’d never really given much thought to where they came from before.

 

Interesting.

 

“There’s a language to flowers, right?” Tony asked, still examining the sunflower. “Different flowers mean different things?”

 

“Sure,” the man said. “Sunflowers, for example, symbolize loyalty and adoration. Do you have a pet you want to reward?”

 

Now that… that was a thought.

 

Tony arched an eyebrow at the man, and was gratified to see his cheeks actually flush. Unfairly, it made him even more handsome.

 

“Not my intention. Not today,” Tony mused, and finally looked away from the sunflower.

 

“Then, what are your intentions?” the man asked, the teasing drawl creeping back into his voice.

 

“Oh, nothing honorable,” Tony assured him, and the man’s smirk returned in full force.

 

“Dishonorable intentions, huh? Well, you’ve got my full attention now.”

 

Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“I’m amazed your little shop manages to stay afloat, what with your people skills.”

 

“People assure me my skills are just fine, mister.”

 

There was heat in the man’s gaze, and- and yeah, Tony was quite sure people literally fell all over themselves to even just test out this man’s ‘skills’.

 

“So, you want your flowers to mean something. We gonna play twenty questions before you tell me what?”

 

“Impatient?”

 

The man shrugged.

 

“I’ve got this book - Idiot's Guide to Customer Service - that I was in the middle of reading. Kinda eager to get back to it.”

 

Tony snorted a laugh, and the man’s smirk turned into a grin, warm and charming and bright enough to rival the sunflower Tony had been gazing at.

 

“What kind of flower says you’re the most gorgeous, perfect human in this galaxy, and I love you?”

 

Tony didn’t do very well with emotions, did even worse with declarations of said emotions, and even just saying them  _ now _ , he had to push the words out in a rush.

 

The man’s grin faded, leaving his mouth slightly agape and his eyes wide.

 

“Do you have any flowers that say that?”

 

“Uh, yeah. We- Yeah.” The man shook himself and made a visible effort to refocus. “Does your… gorgeous, perfect human have any allergies or flower preferences?”

 

“Doesn’t like orchids. Or lilies. No allergies, though.” Amazingly, Tony didn’t even need to ask FRIDAY to confirm that. 

 

The man gave him a small smile at the information.

 

“Alright so… love?” The man gestured towards an array of roses. “Lavender roses? Love at first sight?”

 

Tony snorted a laugh. 

 

_ First sight _ had been through the wreckage of a Doom Bot attack.

 

“No?” The man grinned. “What about red roses? Very traditional.”

 

Tony tapped a finger against his lips and considered.

 

“I like the color,” he decided, and the man actually laughed, loud and carefree. “But I’m not into the whole traditional thing.”

 

“Fair enough. What about… red tulips?”

 

Tony considered the dark red bulbs and the bright green stems. He leaned in closer. The scent was very light - a little sweet, but not at all cloying.

 

“These are Couleur Cardinal tulips,” the man explained, running one elegant metal finger over the dark-red curve of a petal. 

 

“What do they mean?” Tony asked, unable and unwilling to look away from the man’s caress.

 

“Red tulips in general mean love. You can use them to make a declaration. But they also mean eternal love or perfect love.”

 

“Sounds about right,” Tony decided, and finally looked away from the man’s finger and back to his face.

 

“Yeah?” The man was offering up another soft smile, and Tony nodded.

 

“So… a lot of those,” Tony waved a hand at them. “And… anything around here symbolize beauty?”

 

The question earned another carefree laugh, and Tony smiled in response to the sound.

 

“Looking for beauty in a flower shop?” The man shook his head and looked mournful. “Not sure you came to the right place.”

 

“Too bad. I even ran all the way here.”

 

The man rolled his eyes at Tony, but then he looked past him, gaze narrow and assessing, as he looked over his stock.

 

“How do you feel about limonium?”

 

Tony arched an eyebrow.

 

“I’ve considered having it installed in my kitchen?”

 

The man rolled his eyes and gestured for Tony to follow him - around one row of flowers, past another, and to the far wall of the small shop. He stopped beside a cluster of long, delicate-stemmed flowers with a wide spray of small, pale purple petals.

 

“Limonium. Also called sea lavender. But not actually related to lavender. Or from the sea.”

 

“So it’s a lie,” Tony concluded.

 

The man rolled his eyes.

 

“No. They prefer salty soil - so they grow  _ near _ the sea. And the color of the flower is lavender. Hence, sea lavender.”

 

“If you say so.”

 

“Several thousand biologists say so,” the man muttered.

 

“Biologists aren’t  _ real _ scientists,” Tony pointed out, an old not-really joke from his MIT days.

 

The man merely lifted both eyebrows, looking unimpressed.

 

“So these mean beauty?” Tony asked. They  _ were _ ...aesthetically pleasing, he supposed. They looked incredibly fragile, though, and he didn’t trust himself to even think about touching them.

 

“Mm,” the man agreed. “Eternal beauty.”

 

Which… hadn’t been  _ exactly _ what Tony had said, but that didn’t mean he disagreed with the principle behind it. Still-

 

“The best arrangements symbolize both the person giving the flowers and the one receiving them,” the man said before Tony could speak up.

 

Tony mulled that over for a moment.

 

And then he narrowed his eyes at the man.

 

“Are you calling me  _ old _ ?”

 

The man gave him a dimpled smirk.

 

“Can’t be close to eternal beauty if you’re young, can you?”

 

Tony glared, but the man’s smirk remained entirely unaffected.

 

“Fine,” Tony sighed. “Those, too. Is that… That’s good?” He wasn’t used to being out of his depth in this kind of way. Was even less used to  _ caring _ about someone else’s opinion.

 

“It’s great. Perfect,” the man assured him. “But I might add something else to the bouquet to round it out, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Sure,” Tony shrugged, and he could feel the weight of his own tension.

 

For fuck’s sake. It was just a  _ floral arrangement _ .

 

“You deliver, right?”

 

“We do.”

 

“Great. Stark Tower, it’s-”

 

“-the phallic monument near Grand Central, I know.”

 

Tony glared at him. The man continued to smirk.

 

“You want these at a certain time, or anything?”

 

“Six-thirty.” Tony tried to sound casual. Tried to sound like he hadn’t planned an entire  _ thing _ around it.

 

And, okay, the  _ thing _ was mostly FRIDAY making him stop work at at five-thirty so that he could shower and shave and be out of the way while the catering staff set up dinner. Dinner, an actual meal instead of snacks and smoothies, at an actual table instead of on-the-go. It was a  _ thing _ . Tony was making an effort.

 

“Six-thirty it is.”

 

“Great. FRIDAY, do the thing where you pay for this,” Tony said, addressing the AI connected to his earpiece for the first time since walking into the shop.

 

“Already done, boss,” she assured him.

 

It was Tony’s turn to smirk now. The man just rolled his eyes.

 

“Thanks for your help,” Tony paused to look at his nametag, “Bucky.”

 

It earned him another eyeroll.

 

“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Stark.”

 

-o-

 

Six-twenty-seven.

 

Six-twenty-eight.

 

“FRIDAY-”

 

“Boss, no, there have not been any Avengers-level events in the three minutes since you last asked.”

 

“Sure, but what about-”

 

“Boss, do I need to engage in the Potts protocol?”

 

Tony snapped his mouth shut.  _ Why _ had he wanted to create AI with personalities?

 

Six-thirty-one.

 

Six-thirty-two.

 

Well, this was clearly a bust. He might as well go back to the lab and get out a blowtorch, and just-

 

The elevator doors opened.

 

Six-thirty-three.

 

Bucky himself stepped out, the bouquet of red tulips and sea lavender in his left hand. Tony couldn’t help but notice the hints of yellow in it, just a few large, broad blossoms that didn’t look like any of the flowers Tony remembered from that morning.

 

“Sorry I’m late,” Bucky said, looking a little harried.

 

He had ditched the nametag and the green apron emblazoned with  _ Barnes’ Floral Boutique _ , but he was still in the same tight, dark jeans and tight black t-shirt that he had been wearing that morning.

 

“Well, there goes the tip you had coming your way,” Tony said.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“Damn. How will I ever survive on just the  _ way too much _ you paid for these flowers already?”

 

Tony smirked, but he nodded at the bouquet.

 

“What’s the yellow?”

 

“Yellow Dahlia. Thought you’d like the color scheme.”

 

And, well, Bucky wasn’t  _ wrong _ . Red and yellow were - infamously, but no less sincerely - his favorite colors. The lavender in there was new and different… but not bad, Tony had to admit. Not really bad at all.

 

“What do they mean?” Tony asked.

 

Bucky bit his lip, looking unsure and a little anxious and… entirely too attractive for Tony’s health.

 

“Ah, it means commitment and reciprocation.” 

 

Tony let that sink in. 

 

Well, he let himself recover from that sledgehammer to his heart. Or tried to.

 

“Reciprocation, huh?” He sounded almost normal. Points for him.

 

Bucky nodded.

 

“Yeah. All that ‘most gorgeous, perfect human in the galaxy. And I love you.’”

 

So maybe he hadn’t recovered all that much from the sledgehammer, because hearing the  _ words _ …

 

“You know, only one of us has actually been to other planets. Kinda hard for you to go around saying things about my hierarchy among the rest of the humans in the galaxy.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes.

 

“Right, because you’ve met them  _ all _ , Mr. ‘I’ve been to three planets and survived having a moon thrown at me.’”

 

“And just how many planets have  _ you _ been to?” Tony snarked back.

 

Bucky put the bouquet in the crystal vase that served as a centerpiece on the linen-draped table that the catering staff had set up in the living room. Because Tony didn’t actually  _ have _ a dining room, much less a dining table. 

 

“Only need to have been on the one to know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Bucky said, closing the distance between them with slow, sure steps.

 

“Sure, but you’ve had a shitty life, kid. You lost your arm in a war, and you lost your family in the Snap, and-”

 

“And then Iron Man blasted through the front window of my shop, trailing half a dozen Doom Bots, and tried to tell me to stay on the bench.”

 

Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“And did you  _ listen _ ? No, no, you did not listen. You told me to go fuck myself, and you started wailing on a Doom Bot with a baseball bat.”

 

“Worked, didn’t it?” Bucky grinned. “And don’t think I’m ever gonna forget how  _ you _ said you’d rather be fucked by me than have to fuck yourself.”

 

Tony, a grown man pushing fifty who had saved the world  _ more times than he could actually count _ , absolutely did not blush.

 

“I’m almost twice your age,” Tony pointed out, not for the first time. Not even for the dozenth time.

 

“You’re nineteen years older than me, and there’s a reason I made you get the sea lavender. I don’t care how old you are, Tony. You’re the most gorgeous, perfect human in the galaxy, and I love you.”

 

“That’s  _ my _ line,” Tony said.

 

Bucky grinned.

 

“It’s a good one, too. I’m gonna borrow it.”

 

Tony rolled his eyes, but by that point, Bucky was close enough to touch, close enough for Tony to smell the lingering fragrance of dozens of flowers on his skin, and, not for the first time, Tony wondered what it would be like to lay Bucky down on a bed covered in flowers.

 

He made a mental note to have FRIDAY arrange that. 

 

“So, what’s all this for?” Bucky asked, voice soft and low, his entire focus on Tony. But they both knew he was referring to the flowers, the declarations, the  _ linen-draped table _ .

 

“It’s your birthday,” Tony said. 

 

Bucky blinked down at him.

 

“I- Yeah. It is.”

 

“Well, last year, I was off in Chile fighting the lizard things, and I just… You deserve good things.”

 

“So do you, Tony,” Bucky said immediately, voice fierce and eyes challenging.

 

Tony cupped Bucky’s face between his hands, pulled him close, and brushed a light kiss over his full lips.

 

“Bucky, I’ve already got the best thing in the  _ universe _ . I’ve got you.”

 

For a moment, Bucky just stared at him.

 

Tony waited for a sassy remark - the both of them had a ‘problem’, according to Pepper and Rhodey and Steve and Natasha and Peter and… everyone, come to think of it, with using humor or sarcasm or antagonism to deflect from emotions and honesty.

 

“You have absolutely no empirical evidence for that,” Bucky finally said, but he was smiling that soft, little smile that was just for Tony. “I can’t believe you call yourself a scientist.”

 

Before Tony could offer his own comeback and  _ defend _ himself and his brilliance, Bucky was kissing him, mouth swallowing Tony’s words and tongue taking advantage of Tony’s parted lips and-

 

And really, that was fine. This was fine.

 

Bucky wrapping his arms around Tony, and the two of them stumbling backwards and then falling onto the couch?

 

Also fine.

 

The whole linen-draped table thing was a thing, sure, but it wasn’t  _ this _ thing.

 

This thing -  _ their  _ thing - was the best in the universe.

 

Tony didn’t need to visit anymore planets or any other galaxies to know that.

 

-o-

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
